Mennonite Farming in Belize (Crops)
A brief look at the Mennonite crop planting and machinery
Crop Farming
The Kleine Gemeinde of Spanish Lookout and Blue Creek were and still are the biggest and most known of the Mennonite big-time crop farmers. There are also those who have left the KG and belong to a liberal church but still remained farmers and are doing large-scale crop planting. The biggest fields are actually not all within the community, but are scattered around the country, north, south, east and west.
Corn, beans, and rice have always been the main crops. A variety of beans are grown here: soybeans, black beans, kidney beans, and the much smaller red beans. Milo (sorghum) is sometimes planted too. The wives will often grow their own backyard garden vegetables.
The Old Colony Mennonites of northern Belize also do large-scale crop farming and have their own granaries and grain-cleaning companies. Their fields are all within and around their communities since there is no such thing as a town center or Main Street, also their steel-wheeled farm equipment prevents them from traveling long distances on public paved roads.
Chemicals are used by modern Mennonites and Old Colonists on crops. The progressive farmers use airplanes to spray the big fields and tractor sprayers to do the smaller ones. The whole country has benefited from their large-scale farming, even neighboring countries to a certain extent; despite this, there is growing concern by forestry and wildlife conservatists about the hundreds of acres continually being bulldozed by crop planters.
While many farmers are on a contract with their community's grain cleaning plant, they will also sell to whoever shows up at their door with cash, especially Guatemalan feed truckers. Also for bean harvest scores of Guatemalans find jobs out on the fields, pulling up bean plants and stacking them for the combine.
New Holland and John Deere machinery are the most used among the modern Mennonites, with Westrac Ltd in Spanish Lookout being the primary JD agent and supplier. MF and Case IH can be seen in use too. The Old Colony farmers use old-fashioned machinery from the 1960's (at least they look like it) and replace rubber wheels with steel in order not to sin and keep their tradition.
The Old Order Mennonites from central Belize plant the same crops as the above Mennonites, but they do it the old-fashioned way due to their ultra-conservative lifestyle, with horses and oxen as machines, livestock manure as fertilizer and (for most of them) they let God take care of the crop raising. This group of Mennonites are the biggest conservative organic farmers in the country. A farmer from Lower Barton Creek once told me in a quiet voice, "Friend, my conscience would bother me if I sold crops that had pesticides sprayed on it." I was astonished at this because I had previously thought that ALL Mennonite farmers used pesticides. Anyways, for these Mennonites, the family's share is taken care of first and surplus is sold at the town markets. You can see them in San Ignacio and Belmopan. They resemble the Amish.
Beachy, Conservative, and Holdeman Mennonites who are seen working in these big crop farms are more often than not employees of the German-speaking farmers. While many of them, like the Maya Mennonites of southern Belize, depend on their small fields for the family's income, it has never become an industrialized investment with an export market. These 3 groups of Mennonites are conservative in dressing only; in farming they use modern equipment such tractors and diesel trucks.
Crop Farming
The Kleine Gemeinde of Spanish Lookout and Blue Creek were and still are the biggest and most known of the Mennonite big-time crop farmers. There are also those who have left the KG and belong to a liberal church but still remained farmers and are doing large-scale crop planting. The biggest fields are actually not all within the community, but are scattered around the country, north, south, east and west.
Corn, beans, and rice have always been the main crops. A variety of beans are grown here: soybeans, black beans, kidney beans, and the much smaller red beans. Milo (sorghum) is sometimes planted too. The wives will often grow their own backyard garden vegetables.
The Old Colony Mennonites of northern Belize also do large-scale crop farming and have their own granaries and grain-cleaning companies. Their fields are all within and around their communities since there is no such thing as a town center or Main Street, also their steel-wheeled farm equipment prevents them from traveling long distances on public paved roads.
Chemicals are used by modern Mennonites and Old Colonists on crops. The progressive farmers use airplanes to spray the big fields and tractor sprayers to do the smaller ones. The whole country has benefited from their large-scale farming, even neighboring countries to a certain extent; despite this, there is growing concern by forestry and wildlife conservatists about the hundreds of acres continually being bulldozed by crop planters.
While many farmers are on a contract with their community's grain cleaning plant, they will also sell to whoever shows up at their door with cash, especially Guatemalan feed truckers. Also for bean harvest scores of Guatemalans find jobs out on the fields, pulling up bean plants and stacking them for the combine.
New Holland and John Deere machinery are the most used among the modern Mennonites, with Westrac Ltd in Spanish Lookout being the primary JD agent and supplier. MF and Case IH can be seen in use too. The Old Colony farmers use old-fashioned machinery from the 1960's (at least they look like it) and replace rubber wheels with steel in order not to sin and keep their tradition.
The Old Order Mennonites from central Belize plant the same crops as the above Mennonites, but they do it the old-fashioned way due to their ultra-conservative lifestyle, with horses and oxen as machines, livestock manure as fertilizer and (for most of them) they let God take care of the crop raising. This group of Mennonites are the biggest conservative organic farmers in the country. A farmer from Lower Barton Creek once told me in a quiet voice, "Friend, my conscience would bother me if I sold crops that had pesticides sprayed on it." I was astonished at this because I had previously thought that ALL Mennonite farmers used pesticides. Anyways, for these Mennonites, the family's share is taken care of first and surplus is sold at the town markets. You can see them in San Ignacio and Belmopan. They resemble the Amish.
Beachy, Conservative, and Holdeman Mennonites who are seen working in these big crop farms are more often than not employees of the German-speaking farmers. While many of them, like the Maya Mennonites of southern Belize, depend on their small fields for the family's income, it has never become an industrialized investment with an export market. These 3 groups of Mennonites are conservative in dressing only; in farming they use modern equipment such tractors and diesel trucks.
A small tractor
A section of a bean field
Sugarcane fields north of Spanish Lookout. Sugarcane companies are not owned by Mennonites, however those companies often work closely with Mennonite farmers in developing and preparing their fields.
